Full Description

In 2010, I spent the better part of a year hunting for new places for J&J's beauty business to grow - and ended up watching us slowly dismantle the very brand we'd acquired to get there. It's a mistake I've seen play out again and again, at every scale.

In this episode, I trace the rise and fall of Dollar Shave Club: the 90-second video that rewrote the razor category, the billion-dollar Unilever acquisition that was supposed to teach a giant how to win online, and the quiet, reasonable decisions that hollowed the brand out one at a time. I dig into why some acquisitions elevate a brand while others blunt it - and the five questions every leader should ask before they buy, or steward, something sharp.

In This Episode

• The Korres / J&J story: buying a capability, then dismantling the parts that made it work
• How Dollar Shave Club rebuilt the razor category on four ideas at once - DTC, subscription, price, and irreverence
• Why Unilever really paid $1 billion: the foothold in razors, but more importantly the DTC capability it didn't have
• How "the Club" stopped meaning anything - retail distribution, portfolio bloat, and a voice that got safer
• The 2023 sale to Nexus Capital, and what Unilever's own CEOs admitted out loud
• Why Covid explains a chapter of the story, not the whole book
• What separates the wins (Liquid IV, Pixar inside Disney) from the cautionary tales
• Five ways to protect the core you paid for
• The Dr. Squatch bookend: a $1.5B bet on the same kind of brand - will Unilever repeat history?

Key Takeaways - Protecting the Core You Paid For

1. Name the core before you close. If you can't state the brand's central idea in one sentence, you can't protect it.
2. Audit compatibility, not just attractiveness. A great category means nothing if your operating model is built to reject what makes the brand work.
3. Protect the engine, not just the name. The capability you bought is a business, not a cost line.
4. Decide who's changing whom - and mean it. If the point is to learn a new capability, adopt it; don't assimilate it.
5. Resist the regimen. Every capability you bring will tempt you to extend the brand. Simplicity is a position you can give away one line extension at a time.

Mentioned in This Episode

Dollar Shave Club, Michael Dubin, Gillette, Schick, P&G, Unilever, Korres, Sephora, Johnson & Johnson, Proactiv, Walmart, Dove, Vaseline, TRESemmé, Axe, Liquid IV, Pixar, Disney, Dr. Squatch, Nexus Capital Management.

A Line Worth Remembering

"You shouldn't pay a billion dollars for a brand's core if you can't keep it."

Listen & Read More

You can also read this week's Brandistry Buzz on [LinkedIn / Substack]. Subscribe to Brandistry Buzz for weekly takes on brand strategy, marketing, and leadership.